Consumer TV as well as motion picture theatres are slowly converting from 30 or 24 FPS to 60 FPS. This gives much better motion rendition and less motion blur. It also allows a higher brightness to be used without flicker. In a film theatre, the brightness is kept below 12 ft. Lamberts so that the 48 Hz shutter flicker is not visible. If the recorded images are kept at 30 FPS, then the recording capacity and bit rate is kept at a reasonable level.
The new HDTV DVDs like “blue ray” derive 60 FPS progressive scans from the recording. The systems also can display 30 FPS interlaced output. This may be done by recording an MPEG type compressed signal on the disc. For the 30 FPS output, I and P frames are used. For 60 FPS progressive, B frames are also included. This process involves a number of compromises. For example, since I frames are rather infrequent, sudden changes in motion can produce artifacts. The B frames used for the upgrade to 60 FPS have additional motion blur.
For the film industry, MPEG compression is not suitable. The infrequent I frames makes editing difficult. A compression system like JPEG2000 does not have problems editing since it is entirely intraframe coding. Typically, low compression ratios like 4:1 or 8:1 are used for maintaining good quality.
It is among the objects of the present invention to provide a system and method for addressing the foregoing and other limitations of prior art approaches, and for improving the conversion of digital video to higher frame rates.